Another urban legend turned into film. The Bye Bye Man – movie review

The Bye Bye Manis written by the long-time screenwriter for TV series Jonathan Penner and directed by his wife Stacy Title, who’s responsible for a bunch of masterpieces such as The Greatest Show Ever (2007), Hood of Horror (2006), Let the Devil Wear Black (1999) and The Last Supper.

Sorry, what? You guys have never heard of them? Well, I can honestly tell you you’re not missing out on these ones.

Unlike those movies, though, The Bye Bye Man has already grossed more than 24 million dollars worldwide on a small budget of slightly more than 7 million. The film tells the story of a bunch of college students who, after having rented a new house where partying and drinking alcohol, discover a caption on a drawer which frenetically repeats the sentence: “Don’t say it, don’t think it” in regards to the so-called Bye Bye Man. Consequently, shit hits the fence and everybody is basically screwed.

Honestly, this movie is a compilation of “WTF?! moments”, which made me wonder, at first, if The Bye Bye Man is a “so bad, that it’s good” kind of deal or if it’s simply awful. After pondering on it, I opted for the latter.

There is an overabundance of frustrating and nonsense stuff to consider this flick entertaining – and by that, I mean entertaining in a very specific and laughable way.

For instance, the characters are so conventional and bland that I started to root for the villain half way through the movie. The acting is also ridiculously over-the-top and extremized; everybody is on the same high level, as they were on drugs when director and cameramen shot the scenes.

Yet, the story makes no sense whatsoever. Now, I understand that horror films often require suspension of disbelief from their audience, but they still should make sense within the story they aim to deliver. The script for The Bye Bye Man is senseless and contradicts itself continuously.

Therefore, the backstory and the ending are vastly disappointing and useless to answer the questions that the director tries to insert in the movie.

By far, the best part of the flick – actually, the only tolerable aspect of it all – it’s The Bye Bye Man himself, whose makeup and style are highly effective and threatening. Still, they manage to show him on screen only for a couple of brief moments where he always appears with a CGI demoniac dog who is as frightening as a pet made of balloons.

However, if you still want to check out this movie be sure to pay careful attention to a couple of sequences specifically: the library one, the old-woman-catching-fire scene, the song-in-the-car moment, the winking sequence and the overabundance of train’s sounds for apparently no explicable reason. These scenes are absolutely hilarious, although in an awkward, accidental way.

Nevertheless, wasting your money and your time for a few moments in an otherwise crappy movie is not worth it. This thing is already grossing way more than it should. And if you really want to enjoy the WTF?! scenes, just look them up on YouTube, I’m sure somebody will upload them shortly. Cheers!